Anglo-Saxon Historical Discussion

Arts & Sciences Culture & History
41

Modern historians have become political in their treatment of history more so than before, with arrogance, they think because we are the future and thus more enlightened that therefore they are superior and know more than what historians of earlier times said or even historians at the time. This is called historical criticism. It means historians think themselves detectives and look at documents written by people at the time, and when they don’t like to believe such events because of their bias, they figure out why the writers of those documents weren’t really telling the truth.

I have a more humble attitude towards scholars before me, and think that since they are closer to history than I am, they have a much more unique experience and position in history that I do with all my enlightened future sophistication.

What makes you think that historians are above politics? Many of them are Democrats who have an idea about what they want history to be about so as to help strengthen political ideas in the present, and will use subterfuge to convince you it was so. Not all historians are curious.

What do you mean he dug the Quran? He certainly didn’t see anything there on which to build American principles of government. When you say it’s no smoking gun that Jefferson was enamored of Anglo-Saxon you mean proof that they invented liberty, but I showed the quote because it is a smoking gun connecting American government with British values.

Thomas Jefferson’s opinion on the matter is quite important as he was one of the main framers and a President. If Jefferson thinks our government is more akin to Anglo-Saxony government, then he would likely be the one to know. And he was 300 years closer to Anglo-Saxon times than we are, so they probably had a more unique perspective on that.

The Anglo-Saxons were living in liberty while the rest of Europe was sinking in tyranny. They probably did invent them for themselves, I doubt they were copying the Greeks or Romans. It was just their character, and they fashioned society based on it.

The Anglo-Saxons were not a primitive society, like cavemen, or American Indians. They had a kingdom, like Europe had kingdoms, only with a strong sense of the individual and rights, which is what set themselves apart. Other kingdoms were strongly centralized, and tyranny is just the way of 97% of history. Which is why Anglo-Saxon experience is a glimmer of light in all that.

[quote]>Jefferson boasted that you could travel the entire Eastern seaboard and see nary an American begging. Today, even our poor are wealthy by any material measure.

Riiight… there is no poverty in modern America (and no need to make it great again).[/quote]
He is speaking relatively. There’s a reason why we have a mob of immigrants when we get a president like Obama who doesn’t care to enforce our border laws, which is his job to do. In most countries of the world, entrance into American society is a step up.

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42

Your disdain for modern scholarship reminds me of a certain sportscaster turned historian and activist. His view is, essentially, universities are psychologically corrupting institutions, so the only way to be psychologically free is not to go to university. Is he your kind of historian, perhaps?

[quote=“jotham, post:41, topic:160121, full:true”]
And he was 300 years closer to Anglo-Saxon times than we are, so they probably had a more unique perspective on that.[/quote]

A mere 300 years? Piffle. Geoffrey of Monmouth was almost a millennium closer to King Arthur than we are, so I guess we should accept that the latter not only smote your beloved Saxons but also “established an empire over Britain, Ireland, Iceland, Norway and Gaul” and is, of course, still alive and well on Avalon. :rainbow:

What makes you think that historians are above politics? Many of them are Democrats who have an idea about what they want history to be about so as to help strengthen political ideas in the present, and will use subterfuge to convince you it was so. Not all historians are curious.

:wall: :wall: :wall: :wall: :wall: :wall: :wall: :wall: :wall: :wall:

What do you mean he dug the Quran? He certainly didn’t see anything there on which to build American principles of government.

I’m sorry. I seem to have gotten my 18th and 19th century western scholars of non-western things mixed up; I can find no actual quotations from Jefferson about his opinion of the book in question, so there may be no (historian-approved) direct evidence that he dug it.

But believe it or not, there’s an article out there with the imprimatur of a famous (ahem) English university proposing that the very same book was an influence on his political opinions, at least as far as freedom of religion was concerned. (I’m not endorsing the article and have no time to discuss it. We’re talking about Rowland’s Anglo-Saxon supremacy theory.)

When you say it’s no smoking gun that Jefferson was enamored of Anglo-Saxon you mean proof that they invented liberty, but I showed the quote because it is a smoking gun connecting American government with British values.

  1. You’re still conflating British and Anglo-Saxon.
  2. Jefferson was a scholar of many things, and that in itself proves nothing.
  3. Jefferson’s admiration of Anglo-Saxon culture (as if he admired nothing else*) doesn’t prove anything about the Anglo-Saxons themselves and doesn’t prove America’s supposed heirship.

*Like Israel, as you pointed out.

Thomas Jefferson’s opinion on the matter is quite important as he was one of the main framers and a President. If Jefferson thinks our government is more akin to Anglo-Saxony government, then he would likely be the one to know. And he was 300 years closer to Anglo-Saxon times than we are, so they probably had a more unique perspective on that.

I refer you again to Montesquieu, Swiss federalism, etc. And Geoffrey of Monmouth, of course. :rolling_eyes:

The Anglo-Saxons were living in liberty while the rest of Europe was sinking in tyranny.

Manichaeism strikes again. :sleeping:

Of course island life affects people. We all know this. :island: :sunglasses: So of course island life affected the inhabitants of Great Britain, which it still does today. It doesn’t prove anyone’s superiority or originality, though.

The Anglo-Saxons were not a primitive society, like cavemen, or American Indians. They had a kingdom, like Europe had kingdoms, only with a strong sense of the individual and rights, which is what set themselves apart. Other kingdoms were strongly centralized, and tyranny is just the way of 97% of history. Which is why Anglo-Saxon experience is a glimmer of light in all that.

Manichaeism is the one true path. All hail Mani! :notworthy:

I refer you to what I already said about the concept of primitivism.

Today, even our poor are wealthy by any material measure.

He is speaking relatively. There’s a reason why we have a mob of immigrants when we get a president like Obama who doesn’t care to enforce our border laws, which is his job to do. In most countries of the world, entrance into American society is a step up.

So even Obama didn’t manage to impoverish even a single American. Relatively.

I wish you a pleasant, fruity, poverty-free day. :bowing:

43

The Magna Carta from 1215 contained elements of Anglo-Saxon law pre-1066 by mentioning very limited individual rights, but it was more Norman than anything. There is a myth by Whiggish historians and liberal US lawyers in the last two to three centuries (these groups champion it for very crass political reasons and to champion their preference for House of Commons liberalism or preference for US style constitutionalism :grin: ) that the Norman invasion of 1066 had somehow overthrown individual rights, and the Magna Carta was a glorifying return to earlier Anglo-Saxon legal codes. Pure revisionism. If anything, Magna Carta should be seen as an ultra-Norman document. It was pushed upon King John by his NORMAN barons, who did not like the Crown ignoring some of their FEUDALISTIC peroggatives and rights. If anything, for hundreds of years later, it was used by lawyers as a protector of very Norman-based property rights. In other words, the Magna Carta was used for the protection of baronial rights — hardly Anglo Saxon at all. Such Whiggish viewpoints lauding it as the protector of individual freedoms belong with poor 18th and 19th Century American and UK Whiggish scholarship–as toilet paper. :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

44

Rescued from temp, and someone has been goaded into doing research! This is a very good outcome.

Now we’re haggling over what the facts mean. That’s a big step in the right direction from simply ignoring facts.

People who have trouble with math are less benighted than those who deny the very existence of numbers.

45

Interesting how the French half of the Norman empire never went on to be a standard bearer for liberty under law.

Seriously. The less said about that French Revolution, the better.

Meanwhile, the remnants of Briton culture are hanging on in Wales and Brittany, accomplishing not much of anything on a global scale, good or bad. But hey, great literature - if you’re into sword and sorcery.

And manorialism? A disease that held a great civilization back. The American Civil War was about a lot of things, but those things were all about manorial class values and killing them off once and for all. Race-based slavery was just a color-coded class system. Jim Crow was the barons’ last hurrah.

Nowadays in the US, the North is in decline because it’s abandoned its ancient ethos. And the South is on the rise for the exact same reason.

Marxism has brought back class distinctions because you can’t have class warfare without them, and you can’t have Marxism without class warfare. And the welfare state is trying to build a new aristocracy out of the government. Yes, it’s hereditary. How else do we have the Clinton clan? (Or the Bushes?)

46

By “French half” I assume you mean their mainland territory, the land that the evil socialist mainlanders stole from them and that they refused to admit they’d lost until 1801. (Beat that, ROC!)

Many would disagree with you about the definition of liberty and the value of international oversight in the field of human rights, but while I am interested in your version of history, I don’t want this to turn into another Brexit discussion.

Meanwhile, the remnants of Briton culture are hanging on in Wales and Brittany, accomplishing not much of anything on a global scale, good or bad. But hey, great literature - if you’re into sword and sorcery.

And the remnants of Anglo-Saxon culture are accomplishing global domination.

Oops! :doh:

And the leavings of Anglo-Saxon stuff are ending with worldwide might.

There, fixed it. :slight_smile:

And manorialism? A disease that held a great civilization back. The American Civil War was about a lot of things, but those things were all about manorial class values and killing them off once and for all. Race-based slavery was just a color-coded class system. Jim Crow was the barons’ last hurrah.

My inner anthropologist wants to lecture you about the distinction between class and caste. :rolling_eyes:

Nowadays in the US, the North is in decline because it’s abandoned its ancient ethos. And the South is on the rise for the exact same reason.

Are you telling us the North’s ancient ethos is Anglo-Saxon, the South’s is Norman, and the Civil War was a re-enactment of the Battle of Hastings?

47

Next up for you to start googling: the origins of the original thirteen colonies.

48

Jumping in here simply to say this: that’s not algebraic logic at all. It’s a mistake. “Apple” is not EQUAL to “Fruit”. “Apple” is a member of a class of objects called “Fruit”. It’s analogous to saying “1 is a member of a class of objects called Integers”.

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49

Last time I googled something at your insistence, it didn’t work out so well.

Perhaps you’d better have a word with google. :idunno:

@spaint if I’m not mistaken, the a = b part is algebraic. My point is that if you start with something legitimate and logical, you may end with something fruity (as Jotham would say) but still think it’s legitimate because of the starting point.

50

Slavery aside, the South was always way more dynamic. The South had gentlemen as original settlers, not Puritans. They were devoted to free trade, internationalism, and diversity (places such as Charleston were settled by Jews, Huguenots, Scots Irish, etc. rather than Puritans and the proletariat potato famine Irish etc. like in Boston). The North were about protectionism, puritanism/centuries later religious abolitionism, internal improvements (American system), high tariffs, and Yankee racism/Nativism (evident in the Know Nothing Party). When US Grant made racist declarations against the Jews during the Civil War, the Confederacy had one in their Cabinet. The Southern aristocracy were far more Norman in their outlook, customs, manner, class background whereas the middling Northern Puritans, Southern yeoman farmers etc. more Anglo-Saxon. That a section of the country with significantly less population, manufacturing ability etc. kept the Yankees fighting for 5 years is way better resistance than the Saxons put up in 1066. A large part of this superior Confederate resistance was because of way better leadership that was a result of the Southern class system.

That politically correct assholes are tearing down statues of Robert E. Lee infuriates me. Peasants!!!

51

There are 150 years from the invasion in 1066 to the Magna Carta, which is a long time. Think back 150 years and how the world has changed since then. During that time, there was intermarrying so that people no longer kept track who was Anglo-Saxon or Norman.

And when the Normans first came and conquered and took all the land, the Anglo-Saxons were their subjects. They may have conquered their land, but they didn’t conquer their spirit, they would have seen, they would have lived resistance to tyranny. It behooved them to set up their “fiefdom,”—it is controversial if you could even define it as such—in a way that could profit in the future, which meant they learned English ways and they eventually governed thus. They picked up on ways of liberty from the servants or the culture at large and thought “aha! We can apply this to the King!”

To think that England learned liberty from the French, who never really got it is preposterous.

In the late 1170s the royal treasurer could write that ‘with the English and Normans living side-by-side and intermarrying, the peoples have become so mingled that no-one can tell - as far as free men are concerned - who is of English and who of Norman descent.’…

In their self-interested preservation of the machinery of Anglo-Saxon government, the new Norman rulers did learn to be English, and in so doing helped to determine the future political and administrative development of their conquered lands.

52

Obama knocked us down quite a few notches, and that was his intent. The black middle-class practically dropped out and the white middle class has been decimated. But America has a long way to drop before our poor are equal to the poor of the world.

Interestingly, whenever America does drop, inevitably people go on about the rise of China. It’s not so much China rising as America dropping and the nations pegged to us dropping making it look like China is rising. It was the same in the 70s. When America is healthy and strong, hardly anyone notices China rising, even though they are doing far better than when people say they are rising.

53

Slavery created an economic situation wherein the South were mired in the past in a fiefdom-like aristocracy and couldn’t, wouldn’t modernize. The North were far more dynamic and vibrant. They were inventing the railroad and commerce was booming, and much more variety of things to trade, than just cotton. The South made themselves have less population, poorer, and less manufacturing by their stubborness to old ways of living and resistance to change, which Northerners were increasingly calling on them to do with regards to human rights.

54

That’s one of those things where the people who don’t see it without it being pointed out to them will refuse to see it even if you point it out to them. It’s like drawing attention to the fact that water is wet.

55

Emojis fail me. Jotham, sworn enemy of socialism, has just told us that China was “doing far better” in the 1970’s.

During that time, there was intermarrying so that people no longer kept track who was Anglo-Saxon or Norman.

Some of them still keep track of it today, and not just the royal family.

They picked up on ways of liberty from the servants or the culture at large and thought “aha! We can apply this to the King!”

So now the Anglo-Saxon resistance was an egalitarian proto-utopia. :rainbow:

Where is the evidence for this theory?

I wouldn’t have expected you to trust the Beeb’s identity politics, but if you can praise the Chairman, anything is possible.

So here we are:

Group A, a minority, seizes power over group B. The dominant minority changes the government/law, in accordance with its cultural values that are somewhat different from those of B. It often happens that the two groups also have different languages and sometimes even different religions.

Within x generations, the entire society has one set of laws, one culture, and one language (and religion if applicable), so it may appear that one group consumed the other, and the latter no longer exists at all (or only in traces). In reality, unless there’s a total genocide, or at least a total cultural genocide, both groups affect each other, so the result is a product of both groups.

The extent and details of each group’s contribution vary from case to case. What are the criteria for drawing a line and saying

  • A, the former minority, is now 100% of the population;
  • B, the majority, is now 100%; or
  • they’ve created a new group, C?

For argument’s sake we’ll pretend there are no other groups.

The funny thing is, people tend to answer differently depending on whether or not A and B have the same skin color. Imagine if the Anglo-Saxons had been black.

Or that polar bears are… what color again? :ponder:

56

[quote=“yyy, post:55, topic:160121, full:true”]
Emojis fail me. Jotham, sworn enemy of socialism, has just told us that China was “doing far better” in the 1970’s.[/quote]

No, no, no, opposite. I didn’t write so clearly, but didn’t think I needed to. America was very weak in the 70s. Nixon beat up our currency in sudden blows. With Bush, it was a steady, creepy kind of thing as we are frogs getting boiled. This is when you hear talk of China’s rise.

In the 80s or 90s, we were strong, there wasn’t such talk of China’s domination, and this is when I think China was actually doing better.

As for the Anglo-Saxon/Normandy balance of power, it was pointed out earlier that Americans believed our form of government restored the full Anglo-Saxon ideal before the Normans took over and lapparently made Britain only so democratic.

57

Some Americans. And believing something doesn’t make it true.

I’m tempted to make a comparison with what you just said in the other thread about the Persians, but I reckon we would just go around in circles.

About China though, it’s amusing the way its existence seems to be defined by the US for you. I’ll just leave it at that. :slight_smile:

60

But if that chicken is a member of your family, how could you not give it a chambermaid?

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